stared after him.
Rone was the first to speak. «Well, now what?»
Brin looked at him. «Now we go to bed.» She rose from the table.
«Bed!» The highlander was dumbfounded. «How can you go to bed after all that?» He waved vaguely in the direction of the departed Druid.
She brushed back her long black hair and smiled wanly. «How can I do anything else, Rone? I am tired, confused, and frightened, and I need to rest.»
She came over to him and kissed him lightly on the forehead. «Stay here for tonight.» She kissed Jair as well and hugged him. «Go to bed, both of you.»
Then she hurried down the hall to her bedroom and closed the door tightly behind her.
She slept for a time, a dream–filled, restless sleep in which subconscious fears took shape and came for her like wraiths. Chased and harried, she came awake with a start, the pillow damp with sweat. She rose then, slipped on her robe for warmth and passed silently through the darkened rooms of her home. At the dining room table she lighted an oil lamp, the flame turned low, seated herself, and stared wordlessly into the shadows.
A sense of helplessness curled about Brin. What was she to do? She remembered well the stories told her by her father and even her great–grandfather Shea Ohmsford when she was just a little girl — of what it had been like when the Warlock Lord had come down out of the Northland, his armies sweeping into Callahorn, the darkness of his coming enfolding the whole of the land. Where the Warlock Lord passed, the light died. Now, it was happening again: border wars between Gnomes and Dwarves; the Silver River poisoned and with it the land it fed; darkness falling over the Eastland. All was as it had been seventy–five years ago. This time, too, there was a way to stop it, to prevent the dark from spreading. Again, it was an Ohmsford who was being called upon to take that way — summoned, it seemed, because there was no other hope.
She hunched down into the warmth of her robe. Seemed — that was the key word where Allanon was concerned. How much of this was what it seemed? How much of what she had been told was truth — and how much half–truth? The stories of Allanon were all the same. The Druid possessed immense power and knowledge and shared but a fraction of each. He told what he felt he must and never more. He manipulated others to his purpose, and often that purpose was kept carefully concealed. When one traveled Allanon’s path, one did so knowing that the way would be kept dark.
Yet the way of the Mord Wraiths might be darker still, if they were indeed another form of the evil destroyed by the Sword of Shannara. She must weigh the darkness of one against the darkness of the other. Allanon might be devious and manipulative in his dealings with the Ohmsfords, but he was a friend to the Four Lands. What he did, he did in an effort to protect the races, not to bring them harm. And he had always been right before in his warnings. Surely there was no reason to believe that he was not right this time as well.
But was the wishsong’s magic strong enough to penetrate this barrier conceived by the evil? Brin found the idea incredible. What was the wishsong but a side effect of using the Elven magic? It had not even the strength of the Elfstones. It was not a weapon. Yet Allanon saw it as the only means by which the dark magic could be passed — the only means, when even his power had failed him.
Bare feet padded softly from the dining room entry, startling her. Rone Leah slipped clear of the shadows, crossed to the table, and seated himself.
«I couldn’t sleep either,” he muttered, blinking in the light of the oil lamp. «What have you decided?»
She shook her head. «Nothing. I don’t know what to decide. I keep asking myself what my father would do.»
«That’s easy.» Rone grunted. «He would tell you to forget the whole idea. It’s too dangerous. He’d also tell you — as he’s told both of us many times — that Allanon is not to be trusted.»
Brin brushed back her long black hair and smiled faintly. «You didn’t hear what I said, Rone. I said, I keep asking myself what my father would do — not what my father would tell me to do. It’s not the same thing, you know. If he were being asked to go, what would he do? Wouldn’t he go, just as he went when Allanon came to him in Storlock twenty years ago, knowing that Allanon was not altogether truthful; knowing that there was more than he was being told, but knowing, too, that he had magic that could be useful and that no one other than he had that magic?»
The highlander shifted uneasily. «But, Brin, the wishsong is… well, it’s not the same as the Elfstones. You said it yourself. It’s just a toy.»
«I know that. That is what makes all of this so difficult — that and the fact that my father would be appalled if he thought even for a minute that I would consider trying to use the magic as a weapon of any sort.» She paused. «But Elven magic is a strange thing. Its power is not always clearly seen. Sometimes it is obscured. It was so with the Sword of Shannara. Shea Ohmsford never saw the way in which such a small thing could defeat an enemy as great as the Warlock Lord — not until it was put to the test. He simply went on faith…»
Rone sat forward sharply. «I’ll say it again — this journey is too dangerous. The Mord Wraiths are too dangerous. Even Allanon can’t get past them; he told you so himself? It would be different if you had the use of the Elfstones. At least the Stones have power enough to destroy creatures such as these. What would you do with the wishsong if you came up against them — sing to them the way you used to do to that old maple?»
«Don’t make fun of me, Rone.» Brin’s eyes narrowed.
Rone shook his head quickly. «I’m not making fun of you. I care too much about you to ever do that. I just don’t feel the wishsong is any kind of protection against something like the Wraiths!»
Brin looked away, staring out through curtained windows into the night, watching the shadowed movements of the trees in the wind, rhythmic and graceful.
«Neither do I,” she admitted softly.
They sat in silence for a time, lost in their separate thoughts. Allanon’s dark, tired face hung suspended in the forefront of Brin’s mind, a haunting specter that accused. You must come. You will see that by morning. She heard him speak the words again, so certain as he said them. But what was it that would persuade her that this was so? she asked herself. Reasoning only seemed to lead her deeper into confusion. The arguments were all there, all neatly arranged, both those for going and those for staying, and yet the balance did not shift in either direction.
«Would you go?» she asked Rone suddenly. «If it were you with the wishsong?»
«Not a chance,” he said at once — a bit too quickly, a bit too flip.
You’re lying, Rone, she told herself. Because of me, because you don’t want me to go, you’re lying. If you thought it through, you would admit to the same doubts facing me.
«What’s going on?» a weary voice asked from the darkness.
They turned and found Jair standing in the hall, squinting sleepily into the light. He came over to them and stood looking from face to face.
«We were just talking, Jair,” Brin told him.
«About going after the magic book?»
«Yes. Why don’t you go on back to bed?»
«Are you going? After the book, I mean?»
«I don’t know.»
«She’s not going if she possesses an ounce of common sense,” Rone grumbled. «It’s entirely too dangerous a journey. You tell her, tiger. She’s the only sister you’ve got, and you don’t want the black walkers getting hold of her.»
Brin shot him an angry glance. «Jair doesn’t have anything to say about this, so quit trying to scare him.»
«Him? Who’s trying to scare him?» Rone’s lean face was flushed. «It’s you I’m trying to scare, for cat’s sake!»
«Anyway, the black walkers don’t scare me,” Jair declared firmly.
«Well, they ought to!» Brin snapped.
Jair shrugged, yawning. «Maybe you should wait until we have a chance to talk with father. We could send him a message or something.»
«Now that makes good sense,” Rone added his approval. «At least wait until Wil and Eretria have a chance to talk this over with you.»
Brin sighed. «You heard what Allanon said. There isn’t enough time for that.»
